Serengeti-Dorobo (a nonce name) is an obscure "
Dorobo
Dorobo (or ''Ndorobo'', ''Wadorobo'', ''dorobo'', ''Torobo'') is a derogatory umbrella term for several unrelated hunter-gatherer groups of Kenya and Tanzania. They comprised client groups to the Maasai and did not practice cattle pastoralism.
Et ...
" language, a few words of which were recorded in the late 19th century by Oscar Baumann. From the little data available, the language is not obviously related to any other, though the numeral system is Nilotic. It is not the only "Dorobo" language formerly spoken in the Serengeti.
Vocabulary
A few paragraphs were recorded by Baumann (1894, p. 366), but without any word-by-word translations.
Numerals are as follows. Most resemble those of neighboring
Nilotic languages.
:1 ''napu'' (''kinavéta napó'' 'one cattle')
f. Maasai fem. ''nabo'':2 ''ennya''
f. Datooga ''iyeny'', Omotik ''ainia'':3 ''uni''
f. Maasai fem. ''uni''
F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet.
F may also refer to:
Science and technology Mathematics
* F or f, the number 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems
* ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function
* F-distribution, a con ...
:4 ''ongwan''
f. Maasai fem. ''ongwan'', Datooga, Okiek ''angwan'':5 ''mot''
f. Datooga ''mut'', Okiek ''mʊʊt'', Omotik ''moot'':6 ''lei''
f. Datooga ''la'', Okiek ''ile'', Maasai ''ilɛ'', Omotik ''lai'':7 ''oner''
:8 ''sissie''
f. Datooga ''sis'':9 ''naudó''
f. Okiek ''naudo'', Maasai fem. ''naaudo'':10 ''gaget''
:15 ''gaget aχ mot''
:20 ''tegenos''
f. Okiek, Maasai ''tikitam'':30 ''tegenos aχ gaget''
See also
*
Omaio language
Omaio (Omaiyo) is an obscure Dorobo language of Tanzania. According to interviews with speakers, the people were expelled from the Serengeti in the 1950s to make way for the park. As of 2018, three speakers remember some words of the language, t ...
Notes
* Oscar Baumann (Berlin, 1894), ''Durch Massailand zur Nilquelle. Reisen und Forschungen der Massai-Expedition des deutschen Antisklaverei-Komite in den Jahren 1891–1893''
{{Languages of Tanzania
Languages of Tanzania
Unclassified languages of Africa
Languages extinct in the 20th century
Dorobo
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